Blood of Dawn
by Ryu0Tora
Summary: They would have clashed (should have) and yet here they were (the world is falling apart), with the stars raining from a crimson sky. The stars didn't break the world, they broke humanity itself. Vengeance. Revenge. Desperation. All that was driving Naruto was to fulfill Sasuke's dying wish. He was alone, as the silent guardian of a crumbling world.


**Chapter One**

_"The world is dying around us, you know? Now we're dying, you're dead, and I think I may be a little dead inside, too.'_

Uzumaki Naruto would like to say he was surprised. He wished he hadn't come to the Valley of the End already knowing he was going to have to fight his best friend, but it was always riding in the back of his head. That fight they put off for far too long, interrupted or stopping halfway through. They had been building up to this fight for awhile, Naruto thought, and nothing would stop it.

He braced his feet against the stony head of Senju Hashirama, while on the far side, perched on the monument of Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Sasuke looked poised and ready to battle. There was subtle tensing in his shoulders, his feet shifting. His hair, long and silvery and just not right, crimson Sharingan boring into Naruto's own eyes, stained red from the chakra taken from the beast living within him.

A final clash, and how ironic that it would happen here of all places, Naruto prepared to jump, the Rasengan formed his hand-even as the crackling chirps of Sasuke's Chidori appeared-

The shockwave stopped him, an explosion tearing through the air with enough force to nearly send Naruto flying off the monument. The Rasengan dissipated in his palm, spinning out of control, as the sonic boom of something truly enormous arching overhead.

It was like watching the sky split in half, smoke and ash pouring from the giant chunk of metal and earth as it passed through the sky. The mass caught fire, pieces breaking off and spreading apart like thousands of falling stars, burning red with hate. For a long moment, the world seemed to come to a halt, time slowed, Naruto could witness every passing second as the asteroid crawled through the sky, as the smaller chunks of rocks drifted down-down-

Naruto would remember the impact of the first meteor for the rest of his life. A bone jarring explosion, shaking the earth under his feet, cracks webbing through Senju Hashirama's head. On the far side of the Valley of the End, Sasuke no longer held an expression of indifference, his dark eyes widened in shock. At some point from the moment the asteroid entered the atmosphere, to the first meteor striking the earth, he had lost the Cursed Seal form.

The rest of the meteors seemed to fall at once-to his left, behind him, everywhere-the trees had caught fire and the mountainside was sloping dangerously. Naruto jumped back as the monument gave way under his feet, making it to the solid ground behind just in time to watch Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara crumble into pieces.

He was forced to jump again when the earth gave another unforgiving shake, struggling to stay on his feet, and cracks branched out throughout the mountainside. Horror dawned on Naruto, as he realized the entire mountain was about to come crashing down.

He took off at a sprint-was sent flying to the side, crashing onto his shoulder hard enough to bruise, as a meteor struck all to close for comfort. The force of the impact left Naruto dazed, his ears ringing, blinking something he thought might be blood out of his eyes.

Half-stumbling, Naruto ran-he only remembered the friend he left behind after he had gone another hundred feet, whirling around in fear.

"Sasuke!" he yelled, abruptly changing course for the valley again.

There wasn't much of a valley left, the mountains collapsed and choking up the lake that ran through the monuments. The waterfall was gone and nothing of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara remained, as if it never existed in the first place. Naruto could picture Sasuke lying somewhere, broken, bleeding. He forced the images out of his head, choosing (trying so hard) to believe that Sasuke was strong enough to keep himself alive.

"Sasuke!" he shouted again, and there was dust stinging his eyes now, mixed with smoke from burning forests. Rumbles sounded from far off, up close-a dull roar in the background from the meteor, ravaging the planet as it made its descent-the distant clamor of far-off destruction. "Where are you?!"

It was hard to see now, even harder to breath, and sweat clung to Naruto's forehead. He took a step closer to the edge of the mountain, trying to make out what lay below. It was impossible, and he edged along the mountainside for a couple paces, before jumping straight down. Something told him Sasuke was down there-a gut feeling, and Naruto had learned never to ignore those.

"SASUKE?!"

No one replied.

A high, keening whistle tore through the air and Naruto's eyes widened-he launched himself back up the mountain, not wanting to get caught in a rockslide-and the explosion knocked him free of the rocks. For ten heart-stopping seconds, Naruto was in a free-fall-and then his back hit the ground, harsh and sudden, leaving him breathless and paralyzed.

A shadow passed over him and Naruto could only watch, his body unresponsive, eyes glued to several tons of rocks and rubble tumbling down the mountain. He opened his mouth to shout, to cry, to something-but nothing but a faint rasp escape-

Hands grabbing his shoulders, tossing him aside as though he weighed nothing, the pounding crash of the rockslide colliding with the ground-and Naruto was left alive and unharmed.

It took him a couple moments of blankness to comprehend the lack of pain, the feeling of being alive. The burn of ash and dust in his eyes forced him to blink, snapping him out of the daze, and he sat up quickly. A little too quickly, because his head swam, and he shot a hand out to catch himself before falling back.

"What happen . . ."

Naruto's voice faltered. Broke. Died in his throat, all words failing him, because what his eyes were seeing couldn't be true. It was an impossibility, something that couldn't happen, that he promised himself that he wouldn't let happen. Ever since that mission to Wave, watching a comrade fall before his eyes, Naruto had made a silent, wordless promise. He never wanted that to happen again.

"Sa . . .suke?"

Like a puppet with all its strings cut, Sasuke lay beneath several tons of rubble. There was a boulder roughly three times his size on his legs and torso, one arm twisted an awkward angle above his head. His other shoulder was curved downward farther it should have been, a blood gushing from a wound on his head. A pool of red, rapidly spreading. So much of it.

Naruto half-crawled, half-ran toward him, adrenaline pumping through his veins, dread and horror and this can't be real warring in his mind with a nearly-crippling amount of terror.

"Sasuke?" he whispered. He reached over, his hands shaking-it might have been shock, was probably fear-and nudged Sasuke's shoulder. It prompted a low moan, a glow of warmth and life that made Naruto hope. "Hey, Sasuke. Wake up, look at me, teme!"

Half-lidded dark eyes were watching him, and Sasuke gave a weak cough. Naruto tried not to notice how a stream of blood was trickling from the corner of his mouth.

"I'm going to move these rocks-baa-chan will fix you up-teme, should have never left-"

"St . . ." Sasuke's voice choked off. "Stop."

"Don't tell me what to do," snarled Naruto, clawing at the rubble. He was dimly aware of his fingers, tipped with real claws. His voice had gone guttural and deep. "I'm getting you outta here, just you watch me!"

"Don't be . . . a moron," came the weak reply.

Weak, Sasuke was never weak. Naruto growled to himself, taking a large rock and hurtling it off Sasuke with little effort.

"Listen to me, Naruto."

"No, you listen to me!" Naruto shouted, digging his fingers into the boulder crushing half of Sasuke's body. His claws broke through the stone, flecks of rock falling to the ground. "You're gonna live, got that? I'm going to take you back to the village, I promised, and you're going to live!"

Naruto hauled the boulder off Sasuke's body, clenching his teeth with the effort, fangs biting into his lower lip. The chakra of the Kyuubi no Kitsune was leaking through the seal, but at this point he couldn't bring himself to care. Sasuke was trapped, hurt-dying, a part of his mind hissed, which he shoved away-needed to be saved. And Naruto refused to fail.

The boulder crashed to the ground ten feet away from them, hurtled overhead, and Naruto dropped back down to his knees by Sasuke's side. His stomach churned when he saw the damage, what had to be a broken spine and shattered legs, ruptured organs and so much blood. Sasuke had gone very, very pale, his eyes distant. Terror griped Naruto again and he reached down, pushing Sasuke into a sitting position.

"I'm taking you to the Hokage," he said, pulling Sasuke on his back. Sasuke's broken arms draped around his shoulders limply. "And everything'll be fine."

"There's . . . something I want to say," murmured Sasuke, his voice close to Naruto's ear.

Naruto was blinking his eyes rapidly, blaming the dust and the ash choking his lungs.

"You're right," said Sasuke hoarsely, sounding as though he wanted to laugh and cry and scream at the same time, but he was too busy clinging to each breath. "I left and . . . never should have. Naruto, I . . ."

"Shut up, teme," said Naruto. "You'll be fine!"

"Naruto, I'm going to die," said Sasuke. Naruto opened mouth to yell, but he was interrupted. "I'm dying. . . . There's so much . . . more. I wanted to . . ."

"Save your breath-"

"I wanted to kill him," Sasuke gasped out, his breath a faint rattle in his chest. He was cold against Naruto's back. "I wanted to kill by brother . . . end this damn anger . . . avenge my family . . . I want so much . . . but-Naruto. Promise I'll see it . . . with these eyes-"

"Dammit, teme-"

"Promise me," said Sasuke, smiling against Naruto's shoulder. "Please. Be my eyes."

"Don't make me-"

"Promise me."

Naruto squeezed his eyes shut, choking on his breath, on the blockage in his throat. He no longer felt so strong. It like a part of him was crumbling away, dying with Sasuke, wilting.

"I . . . promise," Naruto said, his voice shaking. "I promise. I promise."

Sasuke had gone still.

"I promise."

And then there was nothing.

* * *

Naruto didn't know how much time passed. Seconds, minutes. An eternity could have passed him by, and Naruto wouldn't have noticed. His knees had dug into the ground, fingers limp at his sides. His chest moving with every breath, but he didn't feel alive. His heart was beating, but he couldn't feel the warmth of his blood.

Everything had gone numb. Sasuke was gray, eyes stuck half-open, and death wasn't glorious or beautiful. Naruto couldn't grasp what lay right in front of him. His mind spun and spun in circles and came to the same irrevocable truth:

Sasuke was dead.

He wasn't going to wake up again.

It was over.

Naruto reached over, moving almost on autopilot, and his hands pressed over Sasuke's eyes. He hesitated, his own blue eyes fixed on the dull dark-gray irises. I promise.

His teeth clenched, curling in on himself as if he was in physical pain, not wanting to remember but unable to escape. He made a promise. Sasuke was dead. He promised. It couldn't be true. He felt the life leave Sasuke's body. Held his friend in his last moments.

Naruto dragged his fists through his hair, trembling with the urge to cry. To throw his head back and wail and scream. He remained frozen, numbly staring at Sasuke's body. Cold. Unmoving. Even in death, he and Sasuke were the same.

A branch crunched. Naruto didn't move.

Someone landed next to him and he finally budged, looking up slowly. A single dark eye, bushy silver hair held back with a slanted Konoha hitai-ate. It was Kakashi-sensei, and there was more emotion in that dark eye than Naruto had ever seen. Sorrow, despair, anger, remorse-shame.

"Kakashi-sensei," said Naruto, his voice failing. He didn't know what to say. He had nothing to say. "Sasuke is dead."

Why was he still talking?

"Naruto," said Kakashi, visibly reigning his emotions in. Strangling down the monster called grief with all too much experience. "Are you injured?"

Why was he still breathing?

"No," said Naruto.

Kakashi finally cast a look at Sasuke, taking in his body, the condition he was in.

"He died," said Naruto blankly. "He died for me."

That was a flinch.

"Naruto-"

"I promised I would be his eyes," said Naruto. He could hardly think around the wasteland of nothing that was created by Sasuke's death. "I made a promise. He would see his dream come true, I would be his eyes."

And Kakashi-didn't hesitate. He didn't ask questions. There was a level of understanding that Naruto felt subconsciously, something he may have asked about if it was any other day before today. Now he just felt like moving. He wanted to do something, anything. He felt sick, all the way down to his soul, and doing nothing would only make it worse.

White chakra flared around Kakashi's hands. Naruto was already laid down on the ground, although he didn't quite remember getting there. His mind came in snatches during the surgery, pain and sadness and soul-shattering grief stirring up inside of him. Shaking, boiling, solidifying into a tumor in his chest that threatening to explode.

Naruto blinked his eyes-blue as the summer sky. When he saw the forestline again, smokey and blurred with ash, it was through dark gray eyes. Kakashi stared down at him, eyebrows furrowed in concern, and Naruto noticed that his sharingan was uncovered. He slid his Konoha hitai-ate over his eye, expression resettling into an unreadable mask.

"There you go," said Kakashi, his voice heavy and tired.

Naruto reached a hand up to his eyes, pressed his fingers to thin eyelids. His eyesight was no different than it was before the surgery, but at this point he couldn't bring himself to care all that much. All that mattered was if the surgery had succeeded, if his eyes were truly Sasuke's.

A shift and the world sharpened. Every piece bark clinging to the trunk of a tree, every hair on Kakashi's head, the thin lines under his visible eye, made all the more deeper by sorrow and heartache. It was as if he viewed everything at a faster frame rate, seconds ticking by like hours, not a single thing hidden from his eyes. The power of the Sharingan, sight beyond any other, the birthright of the Uchiha clan.

"It works," said Naruto.

"It . . . looks like his eyes have acclimated with your chakra network," said Kakashi. He looked conflicted over something. "We need to get moving."

"What about Sasuke?"

"We'll bring his . . . him back to the village," said Kakashi.

Back to the village. Konohagakure no Sato, Naruto's childhood home, where all his friends lived-where Sakura was waiting for him to bring Sasuke back to her. There was a shaking in his chest, something knocked loose and dangling over a precipice. He made a promise to Sakura that he would bring Sasuke back to her, and now Sasuke was dead.

Sasuke is dead.

Naruto reached down and lifted Sasuke's unmoving body onto his back, giving Kakashi a nod. They set off, turmoil weighing so heavily in the air it almost overcame the smell of ash and burning wood. Naruto had taken a good, long look at Sasuke's face-eyes closed forever, pale, a faint smile left on his features. He memorized it, every little detail, his crimson sharingan eyes spinning with three tomoe.

He should deactivate the Sharingan, according to Kakashi-sensei. It would waste his chakra and weaken him. Naruto couldn't bring himself to stop. He couldn't stop memorizing Sasuke's face in death, over and over again.

Naruto saw the smoke before he saw Konoha, billowing high into the burnt orange sky, a prelude of what he was about to see. There were larger chunks of hissing space rock embedded into the ground, doton-ninjutsu specialists having attempted to stop the barrage of death before it struck Konoha. The bodies littering the ground told of how their attempts went. Naruto's dark, dark eyes (Sasuke's eyes) cast a look over the bodies-one, two, three-ten, twenty-

"Naruto!"

Naruto stopped moving abruptly. He knew that voice.

She was a little bruised up, bags under her green eyes and her pink hair blown up on one side into messy spikes. Following her was Hyuga Hinata, who also looked a little worse for wear, her pale eyes immediately seeking out Naruto. They widened with joy for a brief moment, before she noticed Sasuke on Naruto's back. Her hands went up to her mouth in horror.

Sakura skidded to a halt mere feet away from Naruto, words half-formed on her lips falling away. They would never be heard. Her arms fell to her sides, boneless. Naruto could watch, second by second, as the world collapsed around Sakura. Her eyes were round, tears already brimming over.

Naruto slid Sasuke's body to the ground, carefully lowering his head.

"Sakura . . ."

"You . . . you said you'd bring him back," there was a watery quality to her voice, dropping to her knees by Sasuke's head. Her shoulders shook. "He . . . he's back. N-Naruto . . ."

"He died because of me," said Naruto.

Sakura choked on a sob, doubled over, a hand covering her mouth. She heaved breath after breath, fighting to reign in her tears.

"Y-your eyes," she said. "Your eyes are . . ."

"Sasuke's eyes," said Naruto numbly.

A sob tore through Sakura's lips and she fell apart, cries wracking through her body. Her tears dripped onto Sasuke's face, rolling onto the ground.

"A . . . are you . . hurt at all?" she gasped out, hardly able to speak around her grief. "Naruto?"

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm . . . fine."

Behind Sakura, Hinata watched on. There were tears in her eyes, compassion and empathy. She had always been kind-too kind for this world. When she looked at Naruto, there was nothing but concern in her expression, timidness and insecurity keeping her from immediately running up to him.

Naruto walked by them both, leaving Sakura heaving sobs, Hinata calling after him, Kakashi standing motionlessly at the edge of the village.

There were screams, moans, shouts-he could hear fighting and pleading and people pushing by each other. Stepping over each other. Naruto jumped over the wreckage of the gate, his dark eyes staring over the village that was his home. There was a man rummaging through a shop, arms full of expensive merchandise. A thief, stealing what didn't belong to him. Thriving in the despair and chaos, taking advantage of it.

While Sasuke lay dead, Sakura bent over his body in agonizing grief, Kakashi lost in so much pain that he wouldn't show-Naruto's team, falling apart around him-and this man was smiling. He was smiling as he picked a purse of the ground. Plucked from the hand of a dead woman.

Naruto didn't remember moving. His fist slammed into the man's stomach, so hard he doubled over Naruto's arm, and launched him straight into the air. Naruto wasted no time following him up, a kick sending him crashing down to the earth. A low, piteous moan escaped him, blood seeping into the ash-covered ground.

"Sp-Spare me!" he wailed. "I don't wanna die!"

There's so much more . . . I wanted to.

"No one ever wants to die," said Naruto. His foot ground into the man's back, fueled by rage and sadness and so much hatred.

"That's enough, Naruto."

A hand on his shoulder. Kakashi looked at him, long and serious, and released his shoulder.

Naruto cast a dispassionate look down at the man-he remembered Sasuke doing that all the time.

"You don't deserve to live," he said. "Remember that."


End file.
